Project demystification - make openinverter.org more accessible

[mjc506]

I'd be slightly wary about provide "too much" help... I know everyone has to start somewhere, but I think we should be assuming some base amount of knowlege - is an EV conversion a good or safe 'first big project' for someone who needs help operating a multimeter?

I must admit, I'm less sure what I think about code - difficult to electrocute yourself with an IDE, but there's plenty of ways to harm yourself (or others) with a bug... I guess "community provided" code is going to be safer than everyone writing their own, but each user should satisfy themselves with the code they're using? Dunno...

[janosch]

I'd be slightly wary about provide "too much" help... I know everyone has to start somewhere, but I think we should be assuming some base amount of knowlege - is an EV conversion a good or safe 'first big project' for someone who needs help operating a multimeter?

Sure, but then why does the wiki & forum exist in the first place? There is a disclaimer on the intro page, they can be repeated on the path pages? You could add it?

If there are things to worry about we spell them out and people will have to make their own decisions.

[mjc506]

You're right of course, documentation can only be a good thing. I guess I'm just worried about Joe Bloggs who lands on a random page in the wiki from Google and stuffs their 50p multimeter into a 360V battery and loses their hands and burns their house down. Or someone who manages to follow the instructions on the wiki without understanding and successfully drives their car off of the couple of bricks they're using for jackstands and into a school with 300kW More realistically, if the recipes are "too good", and people will get so far but have no understanding of what they're actually doing, the forum (and Johu's inbox) could get filled with support requests - some engineering sense and a willingness (and ability!) to troubleshoot is pretty essential for projects like these! Appreciated of course that this comes from experience, but that experience is better/safer to gain on smaller and simpler projects with less potential for serious injury?

Like I say, I'm not sure myself how the 'best' way to approach that would be. Better documentation helps everyone of course, I'm not suggesting the forum or wiki should be 'reduced' in any way. And beginners to EV conversion will of course need help to get 'up to speed' - especially if wanting to use an openinverter control board to drive a random inverter, the 3 phase motor control concepts are quite specialised! Even Zombieverter style projects (driving OEM inverters over CAN) aren't intuitive (primers on CAN, LV, HV, grounding, keeping HV separate from LV etc etc etc). All concepts that could reasonably never have been needed before for the typical user. But then from the other side, we shouldn't be teaching "lefty loosy righty tighty" any more than we should be trying to explain what volts and amps are? I don't know where the line is.

Perhaps a list of "things you need to know/understand"?

• Ability to mechanically work on your vehicle
• How to use a multimeter to measure low voltages/small currents/frequency/resistance?
• Basic 3 phase motor theory *link to page* (not essential? Could treat an OEM inverter and motor as a black box, until it goes wrong)
• ..

Could be a massive list, and sort of depends on the parts chosen (which depends on the users knowledge etc). But if something fairly concise and complete can be thought up, it might serve as a list of 'known unknowns' for a beginner.

I do need to have a play with the wiki. Perhaps a banner can be added that appears on all pages until the 'I accept full responsibility' button's been pressed.

[/walloftext] sorry!

[janosch]

I agree with everything you said. Put it in the wiki, it will help others.

[mjc506]

Okeydokey, Mediawiki can display notices, but it needs some admin magic (I don't have permissions, which is fair enough!)

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:I ... Sitenotice (may also be worth installing the DismissableSiteNotice plugin so that registered users can get rid of the nag?)

How about the following draft?

WARNING: Converting a vehicle to electric drive is likely to be difficult. Users should satisfy themselves that they are physically able to perform any mechanical work on their vehicle, safely install and troubleshoot electrical systems, and satisfy any legal requirements they may be subject to before beginning their conversion.

As well as typical hazards associated with working on vehicles (including risk of crushing, burns and cuts), an EV conversion will involve working with large battery packs at high voltages. Even a small PHEV battery can contain roughly the same energy as 10kg of TNT. If sufficiently provoked, this energy could be released in the form of an explosion, a significant (and practically inextinguishable) fire, or be capable of accelerating heavy objects to significant speeds. Electrical shocks and burns are also a significant hazard. Those considering an EV conversion should carefully consider the safety of themselves and those around them both while performing the conversion, and using a completed vehicle afterwards, taking necessary steps to ensure safety at all stages.

It is recommended to read as much documentation as possible, ideally before choosing a vehicle and conversion parts, especially the "Before you begin" section of the main page.

<dismiss button>I understand that I am wholly responsible for my own project</button>

I guess for the anon notice, the button could be replaced with "To dismiss this message, log in to the wiki using your forum username and password"

[janosch]

Yeah some sort of notice just popped up for me on the performance page!

[mjc506]

Holy fsck that was quick!! Thanks @johu ! (I presume )

[johu]

Yep I'm not sure who has permission but it can be edited by browsing https://openinverter.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sitenotice

Just searching where I can change the "Dismiss" text... done

anonymous users can't dismiss it.

[mark]

I've been thinking about the cheap vs. powerful pages, and I'm not sure how to best describe those ideas. I don't think it's the binary proposition as it's currently stated. It's more of a continuum or sorts.

Some cheaper, less powerful options on one end (Prius components), some expensive and powerful options at the other (anything Tesla), and some in the middle (GS450h, Leaf).

Maybe those existing pages could be about optimizing for either end of that spectrum, knowing that most people will fall somewhere closer to the middle?

[mjc506]

Nice

I've had a fiddle on the main page - a paragraph trying to discourage "how hard can it be to add a Chademo port to my brand new EV", a line suggesting that mechanical issues ("my brakes are seized, what parameters do I need to change in the firmware?") should be dealt with elsewhere, and started a 'Required knowledge" section.

Wrt the 'recipes', fairly vague examples are probably good. "<username> has had success with <x car> using <y components> for <z performance>". Even if 'we' come up with a foolproof set of parts that all work nicely together, some of those parts will become unavailabe/superceded/difficult to find in some countries. And then you add in each user having different vehicles, desires... Even if it's just extending the HV cables to suit a physically larger vehicle, that can get quite involved if the user is expecting everything to 'just work'.

[Gregski]

There could also be a third path:
"I want an EV conversion but I can't code yet"; Maybe Gregski can write a bit there?

hey, what are you trying to say

[janosch]

hey, what are you trying to say

hahaha, oh my god I am sorry, I must be mixing something up, I thought you were the guy learning to code as he goes along!

[Gregski]

hahaha, oh my god I am sorry, I must be mixing something up, I thought you were the guy learning to code as he goes along!

you are correct, I do have a computer background but am only a YouTube Certified Arduino programmer

[bobby_come_lately]

I've done some updates to the 'cheap' stub here: https://openinverter.org/wiki/I_want_a_ ... conversion

More input welcome.

Will do the power one when I get a chance.

[P.S.Mangelsdorf]

I'm a visual guy, so I'm going to try to find time to draw up a high level diagram of all components needed for an EV conversion, I think it'd be useful for newbies to wrap their head around what is required. I make no promises - work has been insane - but I'll try.

[Gregski]

I'm a visual guy, so I'm going to try to find time to draw up a high level diagram of all components needed for an EV conversion, I think it'd be useful for newbies to wrap their head around what is required. I make no promises - work has been insane - but I'll try.

luv the idea, it would be cool to complicate your plans with making it animated, in the sense that if you replace say the Lexus GS450h transmotor with a Nissan Leaf motor the diagram adjusts and pops in a transmission adapter plate for rear drive cars, but I will wait till the Mangeldorf version 1.1.2 for that

[Cera]

I don't know if I'll be able to offer any useful input to this, but I'll give you my thoughts as a someone coming to the scene with zero experience (I did not know why I needed an inverter to drive the motor when I joined here :p) and no engineering background of any kind (I'm an emergency nurse, I fix people, not machines ) and well, it was a rough start to say the least.

Here's my two thoughts on increasing accessibility based on my reflection on my own journey;

1. Show that it's possible. Present examples.

When I first started thinking about EV conversion of my old VW bus, I typed "electric VW T2" into a search engine and right off the bat basically found the Youtube videos of EV conversions done by JehuGarcia, as well as companies and custom shops such as EVShow presenting them with Hyper9 etc "ready-made" motor kits. For example this was one of my biggest inspirations when I first started out:



Even though I didn't have any knowledge about what parts went into them, just seeing that someone had done it and got it running was probably the biggest driver for me and made me look deeper into it. I rewatched the video over and over, searched for other similar ones and tried to make sense of what parts I needed. Funnily enough, since most of the examples I found used those AC motors, I didn't even think that it could be done by using second hand parts from wrecked vehicles (which is evident in my first posts here ), I generally assumed manufacturers would've locked their hardware down so that it'd not be usable or that it'd just be way too difficult.

I stumbled on Openinverter by an random web search "diy ev motor" or something like (first the forum side) and didn't even realize it had wiki until a few days later, oops :p I also didn't readily understand that it had a larger purpose and first thought this was very specialised corner of the DIY EV community focusing on making one niché opensource motor controller or something like (because of the name), then I found the build threads and realised here too were examples to spy on and to take inspiration from. Basically again "Hey these folks have done it, I'll see how they've done it". At the same time I also found DIY electriccar but after starting build threads on both I noted this seemed friendlier community-wise so I've kinda stayed more in here since.

Therefore, to make said examples, Wiki list or some kind of showroom for "Running/finished builds" would probably be highly inspirational for newcomers. Say, a vehicle card type of small-ish entries: Which vehicle. Which motor. Which VCU. Which batteries. Other mentionable basic specs. Four lines of summary about why these components were chosen and then a "Find out more" link to the associated forum build thread...

2. Easy to understand basics

I really like the way the front page is going now when you land on openinverter.org with the basic info available straight away. I also really like the idea presented above with visual graph of "This is what you need" -basics. I spent hours in absorbing the build threads, "Okay so you have this component.. and it connects to that.. but why do you need that circuit board now then??" and to be honest I'm still lost in some places. I'm currently planning the circuit diagram for my build and I'm going over thread after thread looking for examples about what connectors people use, what is a shunt and which one I'll be needing, what is the most common wire gauge, so on.

I do consider myself a quick learner and very stubborn in wading through the interwebs but sometimes I wish there'd be more accessible basic information "This is what you need and this is why" available (I.e. "DC/DC Converter: This is what allows you to run 12V system from the batteries.")

Currently when I'm planning the circuit diagram I notice I keep searching for "which contactors should I use and why" -type of basic things and trying to understand simple stuff which (I assume) most likely is pretty obvious to you electrical engineers out there. I don't mean there'd need to be "full recipes" for which motor to pick and which charger to choose and so forth, because if there's examples people can look at (see point 1) the missing piece becomes "What will I need in general and how do I connect all this together"

Note: This is not to say I'd not be thankful for the info that *is* available - of course I am. Your work has enabled me to begin on this journey and I will keep wading through the threads even if there's never going to be easier to understand basics available.

Anyway, that's my two cents or two points tonight So far I've been bad at participating to the community and have only focused on my own build, that is mainly because I don't feel like I'd have much to give - I'm still no engineer and I can't code - so I consider I'm mostly here for learning. Although I am working on solution for the reverse-mounted Leaf gearbox lubrication fix, so who knows, maybe some day?

[philbrennan]

I welcome that this topic has come up.
I'm still at early days with my conversion, I have found the forum useful. I gotta say I didn't find the wiki hugely useful.
And I wonder sometimes what to expect, as I know this site grew up around the open inverter.
In general there seems to be emphasis on the cutting edge, and OEM hardware, and not at all on the "boring" bits, which to EV folks are old hat, but yes a mystery to newbies like myself. They are spoken about in the "how", but not the "why". There's a lot of things that are plainly obvious to experienced folks. They aren't all complex deep dives. They are explanations of how things fit together.

I'm happy to contribute to that as I embark on my journey.

I think recipes would be hugely useful. People can follow their own path if they want but they should be clear on why they are doing that and the opportunity costs.
I think the earlier post talking about the effort for spinning motor, spinning motor in car, making conversion drive like factory, is very pertinent to that. More you deviate on the first bits likely the last will suffer.

[Cera]

The further illustrate what I meant with "presenting the examples" I created a wiki page for https://openinverter.org/wiki/Hall_of_fame

Please remove if you don't see it fit, but I personally would like to see "what works" type of list in there.

For more visuals, adding pictures to that list (at least a pic about the vehicle) would be nice. I however don't yet have a project worthy of hall of fame mention so I just added a template

Also that was a first ever wiki-entry I made to any wiki so.. yay?

[GaryClarke]

This seems like a problem ideally suited to the application of artificial intelligence.

https://chat.openai.com/

I asked it this question:

How could open a chatbot be applied to a technical forum such as open inverter

OpenAI's chatbots could be applied to a technical forum such as an inverter forum in a number of ways:

Providing information: A chatbot trained on a dataset of information about inverters could be used to provide users with information about different types of inverters, their features and capabilities, and how to use and maintain them.

Answering questions: A chatbot could be used to answer basic questions that users might have about inverters, such as how to install an inverter or troubleshoot common issues.

Directing users to relevant resources: A chatbot could be used to help users find relevant resources, such as installation guides or technical manuals, by directing them to specific pages or documents.

Providing personalized recommendations: A chatbot could be trained to understand the specific needs and preferences of users and to provide personalized recommendations for inverters or other products based on this information.

Offloading tasks from human moderators: A chatbot could be used to handle basic tasks, such as answering frequently asked questions or directing users to relevant resources, which would allow human moderators to focus on more complex tasks.

Overall, the specific ways in which a chatbot could be applied to a technical forum like an inverter forum will depend on the capabilities of the chatbot and the needs and goals of the forum.

How can I create a chatbot train on a dataset on open inverter forum
To create a chatbot that is trained on a dataset from an online inverter forum, you can follow these steps:

Collect the data: First, you will need to collect a dataset of messages from the inverter forum. This can be done by using a web scraping tool to extract the data from the forum and save it in a dataset, or by manually collecting the data by participating in the chat and saving the messages you receive.

Preprocess the data: Next, you will need to preprocess the data to prepare it for use in training the chatbot. This may include tasks such as cleaning the data to remove any irrelevant or inappropriate content, and formatting the data in a way that is suitable for training the chatbot.

Split the data into training and test sets: You will then need to split the dataset into a training set and a test set. The training set will be used to train the chatbot, while the test set will be used to evaluate the chatbot's performance.

Train the chatbot: Once you have prepared the dataset, you can use it to train a chatbot model, such as a GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) model. There are a variety of tools and frameworks available that you can use to train a chatbot, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or ChatterBot.

Test the chatbot: After training the chatbot, you can use the test set to evaluate its performance and make any necessary adjustments to improve its accuracy.

Deploy the chatbot: Once you are satisfied with the chatbot's performance, you can deploy it on the inverter forum or any other platform where you want it to be available to users.

[Bratitude]

This seems like a problem ideally suited to the application of artificial intelligence.

https://chat.openai.com/

Chatgpt will only gain superficial knowledge on a subject. If you drill harder on a topic you won’t get much substance. So in the case of this from I doubt it would provide the nuanced answers needed

[janosch]

The further illustrate what I meant with "presenting the examples" I created a wiki page for https://openinverter.org/wiki/Hall_of_fame

Cera, I like the table structure in there, I think rapid charging yes/no is cool, maybe some of the hardware too.

bobby_come_lately/Tom has filled in the intro points for the two types of people with much better writing than my stubs:
https://openinverter.org/wiki/I_want_a_ ... Conversion
https://openinverter.org/wiki/I_want_a_ ... conversion
We should thank him for that and build upon what is there.

What now? where should the hall of fame be linked from? What should newbies look at after they saw the hall of fame?

recipes

Where are you now? What is the dark bit in front of you? What did you struggle with before, and what seemed insurmountable that is now 'obvious'? (it won't be to the next guy). If you can keep a log of that journey somehow, maybe publicly, maybe in a build thread than that could serve as a scaffold for someone else traversing that path later.

I like the recipe idea that has been floated here:
1) I didn't really know what the inverter did when I signed up, I got it spinning eventually and then came "well now you have to build a VCU" and I am still kind of doing that (zombieverter didn't exist yet and wouldn't work for us because we run the gearbox in reverse)
2) I was too embarrassed to create a build thread until I had multiple working cars that rapid charged!

[P.S.Mangelsdorf]

I'm a visual guy, so I'm going to try to find time to draw up a high level diagram of all components needed for an EV conversion, I think it'd be useful for newbies to wrap their head around what is required. I make no promises - work has been insane - but I'll try.

Ok so I have a first pass at two different options and I'd like folks' opinions. These are just quick screen grabs, the final version for the wiki will be a bit cleaner and use bigger fonts.

Option 1 is purely conceptual.

Option 2 is closer to a wiring diagram

[mleebert]

It would be neat to be able to click on the items in the diagram and to navigate to the corresponding wiki page with a list of parts. Clicking on "High Voltage Battery" would take you to https://openinverter.org/wiki/Batteries wiki page.

There are wiki extensions that allow for diagraming.

[Pete9008]

Like it!

Prefer the second one, the first one seems a little light on information and not too keen on the way it hides the contactors inside the battery. Could do with adding the BMS words from the first one to the second diagram too.

The second one does assume that brake and throttle go though the VCU which isn't always the case.

Being able to click/hover to get more information would be good.